My Vacation, 2010

It's been a crazy week around our house. Last Sunday, I gave our dog the bone out of our pork roast. He is always happier when he gets a good chew in, and that evening was no exception. The next day, however, he started throwing up bone chunks. I knew that wasn't a good sign. He threw up multiple times, and I used up all the Nature's Miracle in the house.

That Tuesday, he continued to throw up, but he was only having dry heaves. He was himself, but he wasn't overly bothered while I cut his nails during his bath. I got worried and searched on the net about problems with dogs eating bones. The list was not good. Punctured intestines, abscesses,....

I was really concerned so I headed down to the vet without waiting for my husband to get home from the gym. He met us at the vet and we took the little guy in. When Tucker didn't even flinch when he had a thermometer put in his rear end, I knew he wasn't feeling good. The vet took an x-ray and we waited.

I should have known something was up when he didn't bring our little guy back out with him. The x-ray showed a ball of bone slivers in his stomach. Fortunately, that is the only place they were at, meaning a relatively simple surgery, as far as these things go. The one thing the vet brought back in was an estimate for the treatment.

That's when I was sure my husband was really not happy with me. I had given the dog the bone, and now we were looking at a $1000+ surgery. And what could we do? If we had the surgery done, our dog would be back to normal life within a couple of weeks. If we didn't, he would die. I guess we could have put him down, but I could not have lived with myself for putting a dog down for something so easily fixable.

So our little guy had surgery shortly after we took him in. He has an incision several inches long and 10 stitches to show for it. But by last Sunday evening, he was back to his old self. He continues to get stronger and stronger. We are so grateful to have him back.

Of course, there went our vacations for the year. But at least I can sleep at night, knowing our little furball is all right.